The Asian Games feature many sports that may be less familiar to audiences outside Asia, including kabaddi, sepaktakraw, wushu and kurash.
Alongside popular Olympic sports, the Games provide a platform for traditional and regional competitions that have strong followings in parts of Asia but have yet to gain the same global popularity.
Among them, kabaddi is perhaps the most distinctive. Believed to have originated in the Indian subcontinent, the contact team sport is hugely popular in India, where professional leagues attract millions of viewers. Historically, the game was used to develop strength, agility, breath control and self-defense skills.
India won both kabaddi gold medals at the Asian Games, with the women's team beating Iran 37-34 and the men's team defeating Iran 40-34.
Indian player Pawan Kumar said his team focused on protecting its lead after gaining an advantage.
“Once we had the lead, we wanted to protect it,” Kumar said. “So we played safe and used the time available to us. That helped us maintain our advantage until the end.”
Kabaddi is played without a ball, bat, goal or racket. Instead, players use tags, tackles and wrestling techniques. The sport was featured as a demonstration event at the 1936 Berlin Olympics but has not become a regular Olympic sport.
It has similarities to games such as “Red Rover” in the United States and “British Bulldog” in England.
Under the Asian Games format, two teams of seven players compete on a rectangular court. One attacking player, known as a raider, crosses the centerline and has 30 seconds to touch as many opponents as possible before returning to his or her own side without being tackled.
A match consists of two 20-minute halves. Teams score by tagging opponents or successfully stopping a raider.
Sepaktakraw: volleyball played with the feet
Sepaktakraw resembles volleyball but comes with a major difference: players cannot use their hands. Instead, they use their feet and other parts of the body to send a ball over a net about five feet high.
Depending on the format, teams have two, three or four players. The objective is similar to volleyball — send the ball over the net and make it land on the opponent's side.
The ball is smaller than a volleyball or soccer ball and is roughly the size of a cantaloupe or large grapefruit. The sport originated in Southeast Asia and is sometimes called “kick volleyball.”
Wushu is also known as kung fu
Wushu, commonly known as kung fu, is the Chinese term for martial arts. It has been part of the Asian Games since 1990, when it was introduced at the Beijing Games.
Although wushu has been proposed for the Olympics, it has never been included as a medal sport.
The competition has two main disciplines. Taolu involves athletes performing choreographed routines that demonstrate martial arts techniques, while sanda is a full-contact discipline often described as Chinese kickboxing.
Kurash traces its roots to Uzbekistan
Kurash is a traditional form of wrestling with roots in Central Asia, particularly Uzbekistan. The sport includes several folk wrestling styles and is believed to have existed for thousands of years.
It made its Asian Games debut at the 2018 Games in Indonesia, where Uzbekistan topped the medal table. Iran, Mongolia, Taiwan and India also won multiple medals at the event.